As I told Janey in one of the earlier threads, if I were to just focus on the yo-yo relationship of the OTP in this drama, not only would the pace drive me bonkers, but their immaturity would have set me off on “When I was your age…” lecture.

What made this drama entertaining for me though was looking for the connections to the films mentioned in the title and determining how scenes from the original film were adapted in the drama. After doing this exercise for eight episodes, I’m impressed with the writer. She/he is veritable movie buff.

1. The Opening Scene

“Before Sunset” begins with the guy Jesse promoting his novel at this famous Parisian bookshop, “Shakespeare and Company.”

His book is based on his romantic encounter with this young girl Celine, he met in Vienna, Austria 9 years ago. (Ha! If you want my unvarnished opinion, it was a one-night stand. harrumph.)

He was asked by a reporter what his next novel would be, and he replied in a long-winded way. This is what he said —

Jesse: I always kind of wanted to write a book that all took place within the space of a pop song. You know like three or four minutes long. The whole thing. The story…

Noteworthy. Just as Jesse intended to compress the duration of his future book into a pop song (or 3 to 4 minutes), the film itself also compressed the story of Jesse and Celine’s reunion to 80 minutes — or the amount of time Jesse had before leaving for the airport. In other words, the film gave the illusion of the story happening in real time.

Jesse: (continuing) The idea is that there’s this guy, right? And he’s totally depressed. I mean, his great dream was to be a lover, an adventurer you know riding motorcycles through South America. And instead, he’s sitting at a marble table eating lobster. He’s got a good job and a beautiful life, right? But didn’t…you know…everything that he needs but that…that doesn’t matter because what he wants is to fight for meaning.

My impression of Jesse is that he’s full of himself. He talks too much. Unlike our hero, Ung.

Jesse: (continuing) You know, I mean happiness isn’t in the doing. Right? Not in the getting what you want. So he’s sitting there, and in just that second, his little five-year-old daughter hops up on the table. And he knows that she should get down because she could get hurt. But she’s dancing to this pop song. In a summer dress. And he looks down and all of a sudden…uh, he’s sixteen.

Out of nowhere, he had this vision of Celine dancing with him in Vienna.

Jesse: (continuing) And his high school sweetheart is dropping him off at home, and they just lost their virginity. And she loves him. And the same song is playing on the car radio and and she climbs up and starts dancing on the roof of the car and now…Now he’s worried about her. And she’s beautiful with that facial expression you know just like his daughter’s. In fact you… maybe that’s why he even likes her, you know? See he knows he’s not remembering this dance. He’s there. He’s there and in both moments simultaneously. And just like the Frank Easton…all his life is just folding in in itself and it’s obvious to him that time is a lie.

I love the timing here. As he was saying that “time is a lie” he caught glimpse of THE girl standing in a corner. Their eyes met and he instantly lost himself in time. His heart skipped a beat.

Jesse: (losing his train of thought) Uhh…That it’s…that it’s happening all the time and inside every moment is another moment all yeah happening simultaneously. Anyway, that’s kind of the idea anyway.

He quickly ended the interview to talk to the girl that he hadn’t seen in 9 years.

Let me explain the concept of time here. Jesse is talking about nonlinear time. He doesn’t believe that time moves simply in a straight path, from past to present to future. He’s saying that we can experience many times — the past, present, future –all at the same moment.

For example, as Jesse sits in the bookshop discussing his book, his body is physically present in the temporal “now.” But when he talks about a book that he’s planning to write in the “future,” his mind wanders ahead in time, to the future. When the image of Celine flashed before his eyes, his spirit is said to be transported back in time. To the distant past. Already, he was in three temporal spaces: the present, future, and past, all at once.

However, the most amazing aspect of this fluidity of time is that, as soon as he noticed the girl, actually standing in the corne, time froze for him. For a moment, time stood still, and – like he said – folded in on itself.

That is, his past, present, and future merged.

Now, that’s the film. In our drama, there were three moments when time merged. I’ll point them out as we go along.

The first one is found in the opening scene in Episode 8. It directly parallels the opening scene of “Before Sunset.”

Like Jesse, Ung is being interviewed by JiUng. But unlike Jesse, Ung isn’t communicative, as per normal.

JiUng: Aren’t you happy to be out here?
Ung: Ne.

Ung doesn’t get the objective of the question. JiUng’s question is meant to prompt him to talk and expound on the subject. It isn’t meant to be answered with one or two words. Ung answers, “네” or “ne” meaning yes.

JiUng: (trying again) You always talked about wanting to relax somewhere, and you’re finally here.
Ung: Ne.
JiUng: Do you often go on trips?
Ung: Ne.

Note here. I don’t often pay attention to how the Netflix subber choose a simple word like “Yes.” But in this case, the subber’s varying translations, from “I am,” “Yes, I am,” to “I do,” don’t properly convey Ung’s uncooperative attitude. The fact that he doesn’t deviate from his monosyllabic response shows his passive resistance to this activity.

JiUng: Any memorable trips?
Ung: (pauses)

JiUng senses a reaction from Ung so he quickly prompts him again.

JiUng: Which trip was the most memorable?
Ung: (stares at a distance)

Note: I like the director’s extra detail here. Ung looks to his left when he’s remembering the past.

He doesn’t look to his right side because Yeonsu is standing by the balcony, eavesdropping on them.

Ung’s voiceover: Despite not wanting to remember, there’s one trip that I just can’t forget.
JiUng: Did you not hear the question?
Ung’s voiceover: And it’s dso…
JiUng: Ya, Choi Ung!

All of a sudden, Ung is transported back in time to when Yeonsu was calling him, “Ya, Choi Ung!” as she peeked into his room.

This sudden time shift is like the scene in the bookshop with Jesse when he suddenly imagined Celine dancing as he was talking his book. In Ung’s case, his trigger words were “Hey, Ung!” or “야, 최웅” or “Ya, Choi Ung.”

Ung continues his voiceover as he relives his daytrip with Yeonsu.

Ung’s voiceover: …with Yeonsu. Just like now, I had no say on this trip. It was barely a trip. How could I just forget that trip? She did whatever she liked. I could never read her. She never listened to me and had her way with me.

In his memories, he was dragged from one place to another by an excited Yeonsu. Yeonsu didn’t mind at all that he acted like a killjoy, scowling, sulking, and moping the entire time, because he feared the worst. He thought that Yeonsu had planned the trip to break up with him.

lol. I thought this joke was funny. He’s Jesus and Yeonsu is Judas who’s about to betray him with a kiss after lunch.

He only brightened up at the end of the day when Yeonsu reassured that she had no intentions of breaking up with him.

Ung’s voiceover: She was always like that.

In his memories, Yeonsu scolded him.

Yeonsu: Yah. Are you really stupid? Why would we break up?
Ung: Then you should have told me instead of making me feel anxious.

He had a valid point. She knew that he wasn’t enjoying the trip because he was worried the whole afternoon; he kept asking if they were breaking up. The least she could have done was to reassure him and allay his fears.

Yeonsu: Must I say it out loud? Can’t you tell?
Ung: I can’t. I still can’t. Unless you tell me, I can’t read you. (sulking)

This is interesting. So he knew that he couldn’t read her even back then. That hasn’t changed because he still can’t read her in the present time.

To me, that presents another reason he preferred drawing buildings instead of people. He stated that buildings and trees didn’t change so he liked drawing them. But it’s also possible that he can’t do portraits because portraiture requires the artist to look into the soul of the subject and capture a human emotion. If he can’t even read Yeonsu, who’s been his girlfriend for years, then he might have a personal defect, disorder, or trauma that’s inhibiting him from reading social cues and connecting with people.

Yeonsu: Choi Ung.
Ung: (ignores her)
Yeonsu: Ung-ah. Look at me. We’re not breaking up. If we fight or break up again, just come to me like you did today.

Ung: And then?
Yeonsu: And then (whispers something to him)

Intermission!!! This is how you can tell that I’m American, not Korean. When Yeonsu leaned it to whisper in his ears, I was expecting her to say something raunchy and provocative like, “You can undress me” or “We’ll dance naked in the moonlight.” The film “Before Sunset” had lots of explicit sex jokes (not just innuendoes), so I snorted to learn that all she promised him was, “I’ll grab onto you and never let go.”

But her chaste promise was enough to make him smile.

Yeonsu: You could have smiled like this for the photos. I need to look at them while you’re gone.
Ung: Is that why you took them?

In his memories, she took out her camera to take a picture of him again. As she did so, she realized that she was in love with him. She told him so.

Ung’s voiceover: At times, she’d feel extremely distant. Other times, she’d pull me closer…and make time stop.

Yeonsu: I think I love you. Did you know that?
Ung: No. I don’t. So remind me every time. (kissing her)

Ung’s voiceover: So how could I forget that moment?

He’s done remembering the fateful trip years ago. He’s back again in the present time.

Ung’s voiceover: (sighing) I had no idea then…

He glances at Yeonsu at the balcony. Although her back is turned, he knows that she’s eavesdropping. So he returns to JiUng’s question about which trip is the most memorable to him, and answers with the deliberate intention to hurt Yeonsu.

Ung: I’m not sure. I don’t really enjoy going on trips. There’s nothing memorable.

Ung’s voiceover: …that the promises you make on a trip are all lies.

Yeonsu looks down at him, and he averted his eyes.

Now, do you see the parallelism?

a. Both men were being interviewed about their lives. But one liked to talk about himself and the other one is extremely reticent.

b. Both men were transported back in time because something reminded them of the girl they once knew. For Jesse, it was talking about carefree dancing. For Ung, it was hearing “Ya, Choi Ung.”

c. Jesse didn’t know that Celine was present at the book session until the last instant. Ung was aware that Yeonsu was within earshot the whole time.

d. For Jesse, time is a lie. For him, time isn’t sequential, and isn’t divided into past, present, and future. He believes that time flow and merges together.

Ung experienced this concept of time, too.

e. For Ung, the promises people make on a trip are all lies. Yeonsu promised him that they’d never break up and even if they did, all he had to do was go back to her, and she’d take him back in a heartbeat.

Jesse also had a broken promise. Before separating from each other in Vienna, he and Celine promised to meet up each other in December. He showed up, as promised, but Celine didn’t.

Those are the main points established in the opening scene.

2. “Fate”

In the film, Jesse and Celine had a little over an hour to catch up with each other before he had to leave for the airport. At first, they tried hard to present a rosy picture of their present lives. But later on, Jesse bemoaned their missed opportunity to meet again in Vienna. According to him, had she shown up at their rendezvous that December, as they had agreed to, their lives would have been so much different.

Celine questioned that. She suggested that perhaps they weren’t fated to meet back then, so there was no point in getting upset over it since it couldn’t be changed.

Celine: The past is the past. It was meant to be that way.
Jesse: What, you really believe that? That everything’s fated?
Celine: Well, you know, the world might be less free than we think.
Jesse: Yeah?
Celine: Yeah, when given these exact circumstances, that’s what will happen every time: two part hydrogen, one part oxygen, you get water every time.”

This resignation or passive acceptance of fate is also expressed by Ung in this episode. After his interview with JiUng, he goes off to a quiet spot to think by himself.

Ung’s voiceover: Things have gotten worse. Why now? Why did we have to go on this ridiculous trip?

Yeonsu appears at his side.

Yeonsu: If you were going to run away, you should have gone farther.
Ung: Pfft. That’s rich coming from you. You were caught, too.
Yeonsu: So? Have you given up? Are you going to keep filming?
Ung: What choice do I have?
Yeonsu: You said you were sick of me. How can we be in the same place if you’re that sick of me?

Ung has another flashback of her at their first trip. This is the second occasion when time merged for him. Instead of answering Yeonsu’s question, his mind wanders back in time.

Ung: We really came on another trip.

Although Yeonsu is silently standing beside him, he hears her voice from the past promising him, “Next time, let’s stay longer” and he echoes the words, “And it’s longer… And farther away.”

Remember what I said about “eternal recurrence” and “amor fati”? At this point, he hasn’t discovered “amor fati” yet. All he knows is that things are happening all over again — just as she described them — and he thinks he’s trapped.

Yeonsu: What?

Yeonsu is understandably confused. Since Ung is absent-mindedly having an inner conversation with himself, Yeonsu doesn’t understand what’s going on. But he regains his senses and picks up the conversation where they left off. She was asking him wondered how they could be in the same place when he was sick of her.

So he points that their feelings must be mutual.

Ung: Isn’t it the same for you? You must be sick of this too.
Yeonsu: (not answering)
Ung: We fight, avoid each other, and run away. That’s what we do. And now, here we are. What can we do though?

To borrow Celine’s analogy from the movie, I say Ung and Yeonsu are like two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule combining to produce water. Given their chemistry, they always end up fighting, avoiding each other and running away. They can’t do anything about it.

Like Celine, Ung sounds resigned to their fate.

Yeonsu: (not answering, but she blinks)

Her fast blinking tells me that she’s blinking back the tears. Though Ung’s words hurt her, she isn’t going to show any reaction.

Ung: Do you want some privacy?
Yeonsu: No, I’ll leave. (walking away)
Ung’s voiceover: What did I have to remember that just now?

He’s remembering it for the simple reason that it’s something very important to him. Of course, nobody forgets a life-changing moment.

3. The Lie

In the film, when conversation steered to their night together nine years, Celine claimed that she didn’t remember that they had sex. But on their car ride to her home, she admitted that she was lying.

Celine: Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to get you, or anything. I mean, all I need is a married man!

Lol. According to her, having an affair with a married man like him was the last thing in her mind.

Celine: (continuing) There’s been so much water under the bridge, it’s… it’s not even about you anymore, it’s about that time, that moment in time, that is forever gone. I don’t know!
Jesse: (accusing her) You… you say all that, but you didn’t even remember having sex. So…
Celine: Of course I remember it…
Jesse: (shocked) You did?
Celine: Yes! Women pretend things like that, I don’t know…
Jesse: They do?
Celine: (angrily) Yeah, what was I supposed to say? That I remember the wine in the park, and… us looking about the stars fading away, as the sun came up! We had sex twice, you idiot!

That’s a key point in this film and in this episode. Women (and men) lie to hide and protect their hurt feelings.

Jesse: (appeasing her) All right, you know what? I’m just… happy to see you, even if… you’ve become an angry, maniac depressive activist. I still like you, I still enjoy being around you!

In context of our drama, it’s Yeonsu who’s lying that she doesn’t remember anything about her trip with Ung. Like Celine, she feigns ignorance. What’s she supposed to say? That she’s never forgotten their action-packed day, his sulky face, her promise to go on another trip with him, and her love confession? He even kissed her, that idiot.

See what I did there? Lol.

From the beginning of the trip, she doesn’t say much to Ung.

When she reads the media gossip about NJ’s special relationship with Ung, and recalls NJ flirting with Ung at the playground, she tells herself that it’s nothing special.

To distract herself, she agrees to check out the village with JiUng. She commits a Freudian slip when she accidentally calls JiUng by Ung’s name.

Yeonsu: Ung-ah. Let’s go.
Ung: “Ung-ah”? They were never that close. Pfft. I’m speechless.

Ung is referring to the informal way she addressed JiUng. The Netflix translation doesn’t show this, but whenever the suffix “-ah” (or “-ya”) is added to the name of the person being called, the speaker (or caller) demonstrates a familiar and intimate relationship. That’s why Ung is miffed.

He realizes belatedly that Yeonsu used the wrong name.

Ung: I’m Ung.

lol. Yes, Yeonsu calls him “Ung-ah.”

After biking around the village, she takes a break from the filming. Still, she manages to turn the conversation back to Ung.

Yeonsu: Why am I the only one who’s exhausted? Why aren’t you tired?
JiUng: Yeonsu, good stamina is a must if you want to be a producer.
Yeonsu: You sicken me. Right, you used to be in the track and field team.
JiUng: You remember that?
Yeonsu: You were always running under the sun. But Ung caught my eye even more since he was always lying in the shade.

She doesn’t realize it, but she just admitted that she was looking at Ung back in high school.

Yeonsu: (with eyes closed) This is nice. I could totally fall asleep right now.
JiUng: You must be tired since we left early in the morning.
Yeonsu: I never understood people who took naps under the shade. So this is how it feels.

Although she doesn’t mention Ung’s name, she’s obviously referring to him. He’s never far from her thoughts. She’s conceding that he has a point. It’s relaxing indeed to be under the shade of a tree.

But instead of telling him all this when they meet up at dinner, she ends up squabbling with him.

Bestie: Right, where did you go guys go? What took you so long? Somewhere nice?
Ung: (glances at her)
Yeonsu: Well, we biked around the village and took a nap.
Ung: A nap? Outside?
Yeonsu: Yes. Why?
Ung: Didn’t you think that people who took naps were pathetic?
Yeonsu: I’m on a trip. I can do whatever I want.

There, she could have told him that she copied him and found it relaxing.

Ung: I don’t know about that. Don’t you like having a tight schedule when you’re on a trip?
Yeonsu: Not every time. It also depends on who I’m with.

There, she didn’t have to insinuate that she found him a drag on her.

Ung: (scoffing) You must have gone on many trips.
Yeonsu: I’ve had my fair share.

Her bestie coughs beside her because she knows that Yeonsu is lying. JiUng knows too that she’s lying since she told him that she’d never really taken any vacations. She didn’t know how to relax, and works all the time. She’s only gone on one trip in her entire life.

To me, Yeonsu resembles Celine in this instance.

Just like Celine lies to Jesse and tells him that she’s forgotten about the sex to downplay its significance, Yeonsu also lies about their outing together to minimize its importance. She doesn’t want him to know that she hasn’t forgotten about their trip.

If Ung can say that he doesn’t like going on trips, and nothing memorable ever happened to him,

then it’s a matter of pride (and self-defense) that she counters him. She has to pretend that she likes going on trips, and her trip with him was nothing memorable either. It’s just one of many trips she’s taken in her adult life, in the company of adults that she likes.

When Ung’s parents unexpectedly call him up on videocall, she excitedly takes part in the family conversation. As soon she hears his father call out her name, she scoots right next to Ung, and starts giving updates, like a longtime girlfriend.

She talks animatedly with them until his father remembers the reason for their call. NJ is at their restaurant.

Father: Right, Ung. Your friend is here.
Ung: My friend? But all my friends are here. (looking at Yeonsu)
NJ: (appearing on the videocall) I’m disappointed.
Ung: What? NJ! Why are you there?

His friends are shocked as he is. His manager Eunho gets whacked on the head for sticking his spoon up in his bowl of rice. The bestie asks if he’s holding a memorial service.

I know about this taboo. In their culture, a bowl of rice with a pair of chopsticks upright is given as an offering to their dead. The vertical spoon in Eunho’s bowl looked like an offering to the dead, too.

NJ: You haven’t run away from me, have you?

Ung excuses himself to take the call inside the house, and the rest resumes eating in silence. I guess, Eunho was right about the funeral service after all. Yeonsu looks so somber as if there’s been a death in the family.

That night, she can’t sleep. She replays all the mean things Ung has said to her.

“It feels like you’re back, Yeonsu. I’m really sick of this.”
“Isn’t it the same for you? You must be sick of this too. We fight, avoid each other, and run away. That’s what we do. And now, here we are. What can we do though?”

She even remembers NJ’s call and Ung’s hasty retreat to take the call in private.

She begins to think that there might something going on between Ung and NJ. In the morning, she was sure that the rumors of Ung and NJ’s relationship were false. But at the end of the day, she was telling herself that it was none of her business, and she should forget it.

Lastly, she remembers Ung’s interview. He said, “I’m not sure. I don’t really enjoy going on trips. There’s nothing memorable.”

Of all the things that Ung has said or done to her, that’s the one that makes her sit up in the middle of the night. Dismissing their trip as nothing special hurts her the most because

that’s when she told him that she loved him.

4. Missing the plane

The climactic moment of “Before Sunset” is when Celine told Jesse, “Baby, you are gonna miss that plane.”

It wasn’t the first time she reminded him that he had a flight to catch. She’d been nagging him about it since they met at the bookstore. But Jesse kept delaying his departure and finding excuses to stretch out the moment he could be with her.

So it didn’t come as a shocker to me when she said — in the last seconds of the film — “Baby, you are gonna miss that plane,” and he answered, “I know.” I knew that he decided to make up for their lost time.

Cough. Cough. Never mind that he’s a family man and all…

Likewise, in this episode, the climactic moment is when Yeonsu asks Ung, “Should I leave or stay? Should I leave or stay?”

She resembles Celine who makes Jesse decide whether to leave for the airport or stay. But in Yeonsu’s case, she wants to hear a clear answer from Ung.  He didn’t answer her question the previous day, “How can we be in the same place if you’re that sick of me?”

Instead, he dodged the problem, saying, “What can we do though?”

So she rephrases her question in a simple way: does he want her to go or stay when he knows full well that she exasperates him no end?

When Ung doesn’t reply, she reaches for the umbrella that he’s holding out for her. It appears like she’s decided for both of them: she’ll leave. He pulls his hand away and drops the umbrella (Gasp! Not the ice cream trick again, lol).  And he kisses her.

Then, right on cue, the sun sets behind them.

It’s easy to appreciate this cinematic shot and this long kiss without dwelling on anything else. But since we’re Bitches, let’s break down this last scene further.

5. Last, on memory

The recurring topic of conversation for Jesse and Celine is memory. It’s understandable because they’re reminiscing about the past and questioning “what if.”

They said a lot of quotable quotes but I think the best one that applies to Ung and Yeonsu is, “A memory is never finished as long as you’re alive.”

This is the third instance of time merging for Ung and Yeonsu. It’s Yeonsu who first senses it when Assistant PD Chaeron notices that her battery is low.

Yeonsu: (whispering to herself) I think this has happened before. Is it a déjà vu?

She doesn’t understand why the scene feels familiar. She’s forgotten that time when the PD left her and Ung to get batteries.

Chaeron: Should we just go back to the village and finish up there?
Yeonsu: No. Let’s just do it here. You said the view was beautiful.

So Chaeron leaves her behind and she sits down in the shelter to wait.

Yeonsu: (thinking) Lately it feels like I’ve been spending quite a bit of time avoiding Ung.

She flops down on the pyongsang to rest. She must have dozed off because when she opens her eyes, it’s raining. She sticks out her hand to feel the rain, and instantly, she remembers doing the same thing 10 years ago.

Yeonsu: (thinking) This is definitely a déjà vu.

This is the moment she realizes WHY it felt like a déjà vu earlier. If this was Ung, though, he would’ve called this moment “eternal recurrence.”

Yeonsu: (talking to herself) How refreshing. I wish the rain would clear my head of all this needless worrying.

Then she sees Ung walking in the rain with an umbrella.

Let’s stop here for a moment because I want to commend the director in charge of editing. He did a brilliant job.

There were two things going on in this scene.

a. Yeonsu and Ung’s dialogue, and
b. Ung’s inner monologue

This is his monologue in full, “How can I explain this? Am I really cursed? Or has this ridiculous trip bewitched me? Or maybe I knew all along that this would happen from the very moment we met again.”

The words are romantic enough, but when narrated, as is, without pauses, the words alone won’t sweep us off our feet. However, by breaking up the monologue, and weaving Ung’s inner thoughts between his dialogue with Yeonsu, the director created more impact.

How?

Because we’re hearing Yeonsu and Ung’s spoken words but at the same time, we’re hearing Ung’s real meaning or the subtext. He’s saying one thing to Yeonsu but thinking of a different thing entirely. His self conflict creates the tension, and makes it more romantic when he “swoops in” for the kiss.

Yeonsu: (to herself) It really is him. (addressing him) What are you doing here?
Ung: Thinking.
Yeonsu: About what?
Ung: About why I’ve to come to you once again.

Ung’s voiceover: How can I explain this?

True. How can he just bring up the time when she promised him that if they ever fought or broke up again, all he had to do was go to her like he did that day, and she’d grab onto him and never let go? He thinks she’s already forgotten about it so he’s reluctant to bring up the topic again.

But he distinctly remembers her instruction and he’s following it. He’s going to her “like he did that day,” literally. He was sulking back then in the past, and he’s sulking again in the present.

Ung back then.

He was grumpy that day.

Ung right now.

It galls him that he’s the one to go to her. He thinks her promise has turned out to be a curse (or a burden) for him.

Ung: I must be cursed. You shouldn’t have said that then.
Yeonsu: Is it me again? It’s my fault?
Ung: Yes. It’s you again. I’m sick of it but it’s you again.

Meaning, she’s causing his ruin again. He’s sick of it but he can’t do anything since she “cursed” him to come running to her all the time.

It can be argued that nobody forced him to do this, that he went to her on his own accord, and that he’s blaming her for his own weakness. He cannot NOT go to her, especially after he heard from the villager that torrential rain was in the forecast. He was worried about her. She was his weak spot.

Yeonsu: Then just go. Don’t just stand there.

Ung’s voiceover: Am I really cursed?

lol. I do see why he feels cursed. He goes all the way up to the hill to fetch her with an umbrella because he doesn’t want her to get sick. But once he gets there, they’re fighting again.

Yeonsu: Then I’ll go.

She walks out of the shelter, and he blocks her path. He covers her with the umbrella.

Ung’s voiceover: Or had this ridiculous trip bewitched me?

Yeonsu: Should I leave or stay? Should I leave or stay?

Ung’s voiceover: Or maybe I knew all along that this would happen from the very moment we met again.

And this is how Jesse’s quote, “A memory is never finished as long as you’re alive.”  applies to them —

Ung and Yeonsu experienced a bad breakup, and their memory of the breakup continues to haunt them. However, now that they’ve met again, they finally have a chance to alter and transform that bad memory into something good. What was broken between them can be repaired and replaced with good memories…because time doesn’t stand still. It flows, merges, re-cycles, and rekindles.

This kiss at sunset continues where they left off.

Moving on to Episode 9. lol. “Just Friends”? I don’t have to watch that silly movie about friend zones, do I?